The blue string
by kagayaspirits
Summary: There is a multi-shaded blue string that binds them together, all for eternity.
1. Azure

This is a collection of one-shots, interconnected by the main theme: the colour blue. Each story revolves around a certain shade of colour, with the exception of one story, which I added in as I wrote the story. I hope that eventually the connection that I made between the stories can be seen, since most of my stories have been said to be rather hard to understand. Please enjoy the fanfiction, everyone ^^

* * *

It was the eternal blue string of fate that tied him to this land.

* * *

The first time he arrived on this deserted, foreign land, the sky was an endless blue. The bright baby blue sky cheerfully welcomed the ships and their owner, with spreading arms and scent of joyful sunshine.  
As he got off the main ship and set his feet onto the deck, for a moment, he saw a tinge of something hiding among the bushes on the grassland. He, out of pure curiosity, came closer to the bushes.  
Whatever hiding in there immediately dashed away, leaving a small trail on the grass. He couldn't see what it was, he couldn't identify if it was an animal, a spy, or just an imagination. But he did see something.  
It was a pair of blue-shelled bird eggs.

After the tiring meeting about the fate of this new land, he escaped from the crowd of men stuffing themselves into the tiny meeting room for a breeze of fresh air. Back in Europe, or indeed, back in any other place that he had ever gone to, he had never felt to at ease as he was now, strolling slowly up the many hills that were filled with glossy green grass and berry bushes. He walked further and further uphill, leaving the hustle and bustle of people behind and letting the soft calling of insects to fill his ears, letting the wind blow in his hair and flap the collar of his half-unbuttoned shirt and jacket.  
As he reached the top of the hill, he was rewarded with a brand new scenery that made him unable to hold a surprised gasp. One of the side of the hill was a forest, with deciduous trees covering half of the foot of the hill like a protective armour, the treetops swaying and rustling in the wind, sounding very much like an orchestra playing some strange classical piece that hadn't been known to mankind. The coat of greenness travelled as far as the end of the horizon, made even livelier with a few flocks of birds that flew out from the branches once in a while. But even the luscious green couldn't compare to the landscape on the other side of the hill. There, stretching as far as he could see, was the Atlantic Ocean, sparkling under the afternoon sky like crystals. The seemingly vast ocean was decorated with the line of ships at the deck and small houses by the seashore. At the far end of the sea, the water seemed to merge with the blue of a happy afternoon sky, made him feel as if he was standing in the heart of the sky itself, wrapped around in its soothing and gentle arms, rocking him rhymthically with the breeze that brushed at his cheeks every now and then.  
He sat down among the grass and closed his eyes, raising his head a little and let himself be washed by the relaxing nature.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the pair of rather familiar blue-shelled eggs. But then again, blue-shelled eggs weren't supposed to follow people and stare at them while they were dozing off…  
He blinked once, then twice, and realized that they were blue eyes staring at his face.  
"Ah!". With a small gasp, the owner of the eyes ran away.  
"Wait!", he said, instinctively held at a tiny arm, and saw that it was a very small boy that was running away from him. The child was pulled back and turned around, his face looking very frightened and he tried to wriggle away from his grasp.  
"I'm not going to hurt you, stop whacking your hands around!", he tried to calm the boy and avoid the frantically shaking arms at the same time. "I'm not going to do anything.", and he loosened his hold a little.  
The boy, losing his balance from not being grabbed, fell and hit his face into the soft grass. In a second, the kid quickly sat up, looking at him with suspicious eyes, face all dirty with mud and grass.  
He chuckled and the boy blushed brightly as the little hands tried in vain to wipe off the dirt and grass. He stared at the struggling kid for a moment before raising out his hand in order to help. The boy quickly backed away, face full of fright and suspicion again.  
He said, feeling a bit hurt: "Come on, let me wipe that dirt off. I'm not going to do anything else!", and he carefully touched the blond hair.  
The boy looked at him for a second, as if judging his words, before leaning a bit closer and let him wipe the dirt away. The whole time his hand was busy cleaning the dirt, bright blue eyes never fail to watch him.  
"There we go!", he said after a while.  
"Thanks…", the kid mumbled under his breath, obviously feeling a bit shy after all of this. And they sat together on the hill, facing to the opposite side of the other. He could feel the kid tensed up with every little movement he did, and more than once a time he saw a glimpse of the kid watching him behind his back, but immediately turned away shyly, and moved a little further. He felt a bit funny about the whole situation, but didn't laugh out, as he didn't want to scare the kid even more. Not like he had done anything to make the kid afraid of him in the first place, he added, after a while thinking about it.  
Time passed by and the tension surrounding the boy had somewhat eased off, and he dared to break the silence.  
"So, do you live around here?"  
"Uhuh."  
"I see. There have been lots of immigrants from the mainland to here huh. So you moved here with your parents?"  
"No."  
"I'm sorry, you must have been born here, right?"  
"Yes."  
"So how many siblings do you have?"  
"None."  
"Ahh, too bad then, it's always better to have siblings, although I wouldn't say that my silbings are that nice either, especially my big brother… So do you have a lot of friends?"  
"Birds and bison."  
"No, I mean, human friends."  
"Are birds and bison no good?"  
"Uhhh, I think they are all right, but you should make friends with kids your age too. Anyway, what does your father do?"  
"Don't have one."  
"Uhhh…what about your mother?"  
"Don't have one."  
"Wait, so who are you living with?"  
"No one."  
"A kid your age living all alone! Are you all right with that?"  
"I've always been alone, so it's okay."  
He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and turned him around, only to be stunned at those very beautiful blue eyes looking so dark and deep, the azure colour that reflected the sky and the sea in it, the immense loneliness and sadness that gussed out from those bead-like eyes. The boy turned sideways and looked at the ground, not wanting to make any eye contact with him.  
"Are you…lonely?"  
The boy didn't reply, only lowered his head even more. A wind blew at the child's face, ruffling the soft strands of gold and revealing the dark blue eyes.  
He put his hands onto the boy's shoulders and grabbed them a little, and surprisingly, there was no struggling. He slowly picked the boy up and put him onto his laps, he patted on the tiny back and rocked it forth and back for a little while combing his fingers into the mob of blond hair.  
"It's all right. I'm very lonely too.", he whispered, as his eyes travelled far far away, flying all the way back to his homeland. It was as if he was back to Europe in an instant, as if he was really walking down the crowded streets of his cities, losing his way in the swarm of people, the sound of horse hooves stomping onto the rocky paths and the gray buildings that bore no warmth. He saw familiar faces walking pass him without saying hello, the faces that belonged to the proud gentlemen and ladies who called him their motherland, the ones that lived and died calling Britain their home while not being able to realize that the man himself was only a few steps away. He saw his brothers and cousins among the crowd, hurrying to their own affairs, busy with their own life and worries, not unwillingly, but inevitably, couldn't care for their own family. IT was the melancholy of a nation. It was as if he was feeling it all over again, the incredible feeling of loneliness as he stood there, unnoticed, in the heart of his own.  
Something touched his chest and he was thrown back into reality, where he was sitting in the middle of the grassland. He looked down and saw two small hands grabbing at his shirt, the blond head snuggling at his chest and a pair of baby blue eyes staring at his very green ones.  
A thought came into his mind all out of the blue, and so did the question that he uttered,  
"Do you want to be my family?"  
The boy stared at him for a long while, the blue eyes changing like a whirlpool of unnamed emotions. He was starting to regret asking the question that troubled the boy with his own selfishness, and anxiously waited for a reaction.  
The child never replied, but his joyful laughter rang everywhere on the vast green meadow, echoed even through the sky and among the tree branches, like the final note to a happy march. The expressive blue eyes were widely opened, they were dipped with the colour of azure that was painted on the sky that beautiful afternoon. And as the child snuggled closer to his body, murmuring something into the fabric of his shirt, he held the child up closer too, letting his nose brushed over the sun-scented hair.

That late afternoon, there was a sudden meeting. He signed the papers that acknowledged the birth of the new territory, with a small child sitting on his laps. When he was done, he caressed the child's face and saw the blue eyes glimmered with something unexplainable.  
He looked out to the window behind the chair of his office and raised his head to look at the sky.  
It was the azure colour of Alfred's eyes.


	2. Prussian blue

"Arthur, come on!".  
The excited chirping of a young chick was heard throughout the land.

"Hurry up, Arthur, or they'll go away!", Alfred shouted excitedly as he ran a few steps in front of Arthur, back facing forward.  
"Hey, face ahead or you will stumble on something! Besides, who is going away? Wait, more importantly, who is this person that I have to skip my utmost important meeting to meet?"  
"You'll know when you see them, now hurry up, you're getting rusty!", and Alfred turned around, counting the seconds away.  
One, two, …  
"Why you… Just wait until I catch up with you!", and Alfred could hear Arthur's quick steps right behind his back. He tried to hide a grin as his hand was caught in Arthur's.  
"Gotcha!"

"So…. You wanted me to go meet a tree?"  
They were standing under a big oak tree, abnormally standing all alone in the middle of the field. The land was originally empty, but somehow, this lone tree had managed to thrive here, all by itself, even though there was no other of its similar kind around the place. Arthur looked up at its canopy high above, the big branches with even bigger trunk, the leaves technically blocked the sunlight away. He could see the green leaves glossy above his head and the few rare sunrays that managed to get through the leave blanket.  
"Alfred, as much as I like plants, it is still very unreasonable to leave the meeting to go see it. We can always go to see the tree later…"  
The next words were never sounded.

There was a flash of magnificent blue striking across his eyeballs, just for a moment before it disappeared into the many branches.

Lost in the strike of blue the flash left behind, he didn't realize Alfred whistling a tune, and a blue bird from the treetop landed on his shoulder, chirping as it replied to him.  
Slowly, Arthur turned around and his lost eyes regained focus, before staring in amaze at the beautiful bird happily jumping around on Alfred's arm.  
"A…blue bird…"  
"Oh, so that's what you call this guy? How boring!"  
"I didn't know there were blue birds here too."  
"So… there are blue birds in Europe too?", and Arthur was surprised to hear the disappointed tone in the child's voice. He watched as Alfred whistled again and raised his arm, and the bird flew back to the tree.  
"I'm sorry…", the boy said as he sat down onto the grass by the tree, knees up at his chest as he randomly played with some dried leaves. The boy always did that when he felt insecure. Arthur slid down and sat by the boy, patting his head and caressing the soft golden strands in his hand. Alfred lowered his face, trying to hide it behind his legs. His voice sounded choked up and strained.  
"I just…wanted to show you the bird. I found him here a few days ago, but he is hardly ever around so I didn't know how long he could stay for this time, nor did I know how long you could stay this time, and I wanted you to see him…"  
Arthur heaved a sigh and he leaned back against the tree. He put an arm around the boy's body and carefully pulled him close. Alfred's head that rested on his chest felt warm and damp and the boy quietly hiccupped into his shirt.  
He leaned back his head and turned his eyes into the canopy above, seeing a curtain of dark green covering half of the ultramarine blue sky of the late afternoon. There were pink and orange clouds at the end of the sky, decorating the yellowish sunset with various stripes and spots.  
"I'm sorry, Alfred…", he finally uttered, "Thanks for worrying about me. Can you call your friend back down here again? I want to see him."  
Alfred's head shot up at once, his teary blue eyes glimmered with the last sunlight of the day. "But you said you have seen blue birds before in Europe."  
"Indeed I have,", he said, smiling to the boy, "but I have never one so beautiful as this one here."  
"Really?", the boy's voice was full of unhidden excitement again.  
"Yes."

"Why must it be a blue bird?", Arthur curiously asked as he petted the Prussian blue plumage of the bird.  
He could see Alfred's shocked expression hearing the question. Even in the very dim last light of the day, he could see the boy flushed up. Strange.  
"Uh..um…I just thought that you haven't seen a blue bird before.", he finally replied with blushed cheeks, which meant he had obviously lied. Alfred never lied, and if he did, it must have been because he did not wish to answer.  
And Arthur knew when to leave it. "Okay…"

"Chirp chirp chirp!"  
Arthur, with his half-lidded eyes, could see that the bird and Alfred was having a little conversation. After the bird had taken off and flown back to the treetop, the boy turned to Arthur's questioning face and smiled, "He had to go back, his eyes are not that good at night."  
"Oh", Arthur lazily replied and closed his eyes again. He was still half-sitting, half-lying at the tree trunk, which sounded rather funny but in fact felt strangely comfortable. The night had arrived and the stars were starting to lit up the sky with their dim effort, though in vain. The night was moonless, but reflecting light from the town assured him that he would still be able to find the way back. So in the mean time, he was all relaxed.  
He felt something tickling and saw Alfred snuggling at his side, one of the legs swung over his thighs and the blond hair cuddled into his shirt. Sometimes ago, it was easy to find out that Alfred loved to cuddle, especially when he was not in his cheerful self.  
But Alfred, no matter what his problems were, usually refused to say them out loud. Arthur understood and respected the boy's personal affairs, and would just stay by his side and hold him close to comfort him. Like what he was doing now.  
Once in a while, he could feel a strange gaze casted over him, and even without opening his eyes, he was sure that the gaze was from those expressive blue eyes. Usually, if it had been from anyone else, the gaze would have made him very irritated and uncomfortable, but this time, it didn't, and he let it slide as he slowly dozed off.

"Your flag…"  
Arthur's eyes opened immediately at the quiet mumble of the boy in his arms.  
"What?"  
"The bird. His blue feathers have the same color as that one on your flag…"  
Arthur could feel the boy's cheeks flushed up at his shirt, making his chest feel hot and ticklish. The small hands grabbing at his shirt were even tighter and the boy looked up at his face in embarrassment. The blue orbs stared at him intensely, though shyly, the dark blue eyes reflecting the night sky shone like two small lakes.  
He could hear the boy faintly called his name in worry, and he could feel the boy shaking him lightly when there was no answer. But truly, he didn't know how to reply.  
It was the first time that anyone had ever said something like that to him. That there was a bird with the colour of his national flag. Even he himself didn't realize that ther was such a way to say the resemblance, even though he saw both of them all the time. He had never really bothered to think.  
Still, in this faraway land, in the middle of this empty grassland, there was someone who realized the similarity. In this New World, in this world, there was someone who thought of him and his flag as he saw a blue bird perching on a tree. There was someone in this world that cared.  
The thought innocently and accidentally came into the mind of a child who was so free to express whatever he felt. And he thought of him when he saw the blue colour, even though there were countless other things to relate to.  
Such trivial thing, yet it made his eyes teary and the blue eyes in front of him looking blurry. He could hardly felt anything else than a soft burst of something sweet in his heart, making his senses all numb and his mind swam in its own thoughts. He had never felt something like it before, the feeling of being loved, the feeling of something so pure, so natural, so precious. All this time, he had thought that it was gone. He had thought that the immense loneliness in him was normal. Yet, with just a simple sentence coming from a small child could actually broke the built-in thesis that he had followed all this time, broke all the invisible boundaries that he had put up around himself.  
He could feel the boy fussing around him super worriedly, but he didn't care. All that he could do was to grab the boy and hold him close, literally thrusting into that small body and pathetically weep on the child's shoulder. He could feel the boy shocked and puzzled by the change of action and whimsically trying to calm him down with light strokes. He could see the dark blue sky over his face as he stared up through the boy's shoulder.  
Never before had he realized that a body can be that warm.

* * *

"Are you…all right?"  
"Huh…yes, I'm fine now, thanks."  
"You scared me back then…"  
"I'm sorry…I couldn't help it myself."  
"Still, it was funny seeing you cry for a change."  
"Shut up, for I'll drop you. Hey, don't choke my neck!"

"Thanks, Alfred."  
"For what?"  
"For everything."


	3. Navy blue

His dreams used to be colourless, uneventful and forgettable.  
But now, they were all violent, ruthless,  
And blue.

The room was noisy. There were people stuffed into the small bedroom, blocking the door and making the place even more suffocating, together with the closed windows. Every inch of the floor was covered with human feet, the air was filled with conversations, cries, metal clanking and water dripping. The weather outside was cold, and raining strongly, but in here, it was hot, with human heat trapped in closed space, unable to escape.  
They were gathering around the three sides of the bed, watching intensely at a man lying still on it. Doctors and nurses were at his side, giving him injections and measuring his temperature and receiving all kinds of questions from the crowd. The chief doctor looked at the man with worried eyes, as everyone else did. He examined the whole body, he checked everything that could be wrong, but found none. As he stopped another violent rage of the unconscious man, he sadly shook his head.  
There was worry and fear in the loitering crowd. Men in army uniform and tuxedo pulled the collar of the doctor's shirt, yelling at him and cursing him for being useless. The few women cried and huddled together by the lying man's bedside. The air of the room was thick with tension and gray, just like the awful weather slamming at the windows outside.  
"Let him be.", was a voice from the entrance.  
People all turned their head to the door, seeing a red-headed man leaning against the door frame.  
"There is nothing we can do about him, for now. So get your asses out of this place before you all suffocating him, by then he'll really be dead."  
The crowd looked at each other, wondering if he should follow the man's words. His words, like his brothers, were absolute, no doubt about it, but the way he rudely pointed things out and his eyes aimlessly fixed on some random spot on the wall, as if he didn't care… But eventually, an officer bowed his head and walked out, after casting a last sad look at the blond man on the bed. Soon, people started streaming out of the place. But as they got through the door, they could all feel the sharp glare from the man behind their nape.  
The room was then empty, with only a nurse by the bedside. The red-headed dismissed her and as she went out of the room, closing the door behind her back, he sat down onto the bed. His eyes travelled all over the body and his hand trailing the face, but the man didn't wake up. Suddenly, the blond man shook violently, his face wrinkled up in pain as he screamed out nonsense, his limbs waved around mindlessly. The red-headed quickly held him down, pinning him into the mattress, pushing the blond head into his shoulder while blocking the shaking arms. He could hear his brother struggled out of his hold and nails scratching at his shirt, but he didn't let go. Nor did he when he felt a sharp pain at his left shoulder as his brother unconsciously bit down in his rage, drawing blood that dyed the shirt red. He kept on pinning the man down until the rage was finally over and everything seemed to calm down. He slowly let go of his now sleeping brother. He tucked him in and brushed his hand at the blond hair.  
As he walked out of the room, leaving his brother to his nurse, he covered his face with a hand. When his brother went rogue, he was screaming what sounded no more than mere nonsense, but still, he caught a word that his brother kept on chanting.  
He gritted his teeth as he curled his other hand into a fist.  
"Alfred!"

* * *

It was raining. The weather wrapped the world with an endless gray curtain, blinding the truth and covering everything with indescribably terrible lies. It made vision blurry, ears buzzed, limbs shaken. It made people trembled under the icy cold water, it brought people down, it made them knelt on their knees and made them shamelessly uttered defeat.  
For the first time in this life, he really understood the power of the rain.  
As he disbelievingly stared at that child, whom he had devoted his entire life to, now a grown man, who stood in front of him, bravely and expressionlessly like a mountain, burst with the strength of youth and undeniable foreignness, pointing his musket at him, coldly.  
The sound of water splashing onto hard metal ran in his ears like afternoon church's bell. Loud and clear, and terribly true.  
Rain kept on falling and he found himself all alone.  
Truly, truly alone.

In this sealed box of truth, the sky was a gloomy and solemn gray. There was no thunder and the entire land fell into darkness. Raindrops fell from all sides, sipping into his uniform, turning rose red into crimson, sliding on his hands and skidding on the wooden gun handle. There were blurry figures swimming in front of his eyes, all of them a sad tone of dust.  
But there, right in the front, was a brilliant spot of navy blue.  
"Who, who is he?", he foolishly asked himself.  
That tall figure, that blond hair with wet strands, that cursed blue uniform, those eyes watching him non-stop… "Who are you?", his mind screamed.  
They were men armed with weapons. They were strangers illegally settled on this sacred land. They were ones who wanted to rebel, to take over this land for their own. They were going to invade this place, they were going to slaughter the men and women, they were going to destroy the bright future that he had in mind for this land, the unselfish future that he wanted to give Alfred.  
No! They would never be allowed to. He would make sure that none of them could achieve their horrible, blood shedding plan, not when he was still here, protecting this piece of land from their vicious claws.  
Because this was the place of his family. His sanctuary.  
The everlasting grassland where he first found Alfred.

There was a clash and a musket flew away, pinned itself into the sloppy soil.  
"Get away from our land!", you threatened, pointing your own gun at him, turning the table over in a second. "Get away, you foreigner! Leave us alone!", you wanted to shout.  
But those disbelieving eyes, those surprised and hurt eyes, the overflowing sadness, those very, very familiar eyes that he remembered being lost in. Those eyes that he had first seen, on the very first day that he set foot on this rich and beautiful continent. Those eyes that had screamed joy and happiness. Those eyes that used to smile.  
What, what had he done?  
He lowered his gun, feeling strength oozing out of his body, into the curtain of rain surround him. His legs turned jelly and wobbled and he slumped onto the ground. But his eyes couldn't tear themselves away from those navy blue eyes. The navy blue cage that had trapped his soul.

He heard the crowd in afar watched in shock before shouting victoriously, throwing their weapons into the air and singing the song of independence. Their dust-like figures danced like puppets in the corner of his eyes, like raindrops gracefully danced on his skin. But the blond man was not moving still. He just stood there, watching the defeated one, pathetic and scarred and pained. His used to be sky blue eyes were now coated with a thick layer of adulthood, turning them a darker shade.  
Arthur couldn't help but thought, how strange they were.  
Yet, they weren't. Naked truth hit him like a bullet at his skull, demanding his understanding. This young man who defeated him today was not the foreign one, the invading one, the lying one, the bloodthirsty one, the destructive one. Those guns weren't here to shot down the innocent citizens, those hands weren't here to destroy the future of this land, those people weren't here because they wanted to claim this land.  
Because this was where they were all born. This land, this New World, was and would always be their motherland. Because this was their originality. Because this was where their life started.  
That man with navy blue eyes was not the foreign one. HE was the foreign one. He was the one who left behind his people and came to this place. He was the one who fought with others to gain ownership of this land. He was the one who declared the birth of the Thirteen Territory. He was the one who strangled it with tax and laws and chains and isolation. He was the one who couldn't stand the thought of it gaining independency. He was the one who didn't want to set it free. He was the one who was destroying the future this land could have, and would have. And he couldn't bring himself to believe so. Up to a point, he thought he was doing it right, that he was only doing the best for that boy.  
But as he blindingly did so, he found himself choking up the child with his own bare hands.

He felt hot tears falling, even though his skin was dying from the coldness. He couldn't see anymore, he couldn't feel anymore, he couldn't think anymore. He was tired. He could no longer distinguish what was wrong and right, he could no longer care. For all the things that he had done all these years, all in vain that he could have achieved something precious, were all crushed. Into tiny fragments of blue egg shell.  
He saw the young man silently got on his knees and raised on a hand towards his face. His head hurt when he felt warm hand touching his cheek, boiling his tears. He saw the man mumbled something so quiet the screams of wind and rain deafened it all, and unnamed men coming close to them, congratulating and laughing. He saw the man stood up and turned away, leaving the pile of himself behind, as the figures in the rain got blurrier and blurrier, until there was no one left in the dramatic background.  
He didn't know when he had fallen down, buried his face into dirt and water. He didn't know when the rain stopped, he didn't know if it really did stop or not, he didn't know where he was, who was there with him, whatever people had done to him. All of his senses were destroyed completely.  
But still, those navy blue eyes had managed to seal into his corneas, haunting all the time. Like a terrible curse that he didn't remember teaching anyone else. Like a string that bonded him up forever.

* * *

"ARGH!", he screamed as another wave of pain stroke. Scenes of that rainy day kept on playing back and forth in his head, painting his memories gray and blue. The gray curtain, the dancing figures in the rain, the flying musket in the air, the deep blue eyes, the warm hand. It was like a messy film roll, monochrome with black and blue, cruelly tangled up and kept on playing with no stop button.  
As his mind rewinded the film again and again and again, his entire being felt like dying.

What is worse than crime? It's the fact that you didn't realize that it was crime you committed.

When he woke up, he saw his brother standing at the window frame, reading a letter. In his vague and misled memory, he remembered seeing the letter papers being crumbled up in a fist and thrown into the air. The paper ball bounced onto the floor and rolled under the table.  
When his brother finally stepped out of the room, not noticing him waking up already, he painfully helped himself up from the bed. The pain was everywhere on his body, but his mind felt strangely awake and painless, as if drugged. He tried to stand up, but his limbs failed to coordinate and he fell onto the floor. He crawled his way under the table to retrieve the letter.  
He smoothened the paper and froze at the very spot that he was kneeling.  
On the single piece of paper was the design of a flag. Thirteen stripes and thirteen-star constellation.  
The first thing that crossed his mind at the very moment the drawing slammed into his eyes, ironically it may be, was: "At least I had left an influence on him.". Ironically indeed.

* * *

Later that day, they found him in the garden next to a small fire. Among the flamed material was what seemed to used to be a paper. The burned paper set off crispy sound as it returned to nothing more than mere ash blown to the afternoon sky. The creator of that small bonfire stood there, staring at the dancing flame which was the bloody red colour of the setting sun.  
The fire had died out, but the man never moved from the spot and kept on staring at the small dots of dying flame. Until there was nothing left at all.

It was nearly midnight. Still, even from his mansion, he could see the joyful and exciting activities of the faraway cities, for which the night was still young. The bonfires reflected their bright light into the sky, coating clouds and air a fading orange colour.  
Their laughter and chatter echoed in his ears, not different from the one that he had heard when he fell.  
"Arthur.", he heard his brother said behind his back.  
"Do not come near me."  
"Why you… You think you can order me around like that?"  
"Please, I do not want to see you."  
"Tch. Fine, have it your way.", and his brother left.

His brother knew that he was not just throwing a tantrum. There was more to it, as usual. As the red-headed man looked at his reflection in the mirror, he let out a disappointed look.  
Because the Scottish military uniform was a very similar blue.


	4. Icy blue

It was too loud, the place they had just stepped into. Techno beat rammed into his ears like plane engine, bursting his eardrums and tortured his already aching head. Disco light spinning like crazy burned his eyes with a trillion shades of colours, making his head spin. The gazillion bodies stuffed in this closed space were all swaying to the music, if that was what you could call 'music', with irregular patterns and moves and the smell of mixed cologne and sweat and face powder and liquor and human stank the place. After being pushed around by the flow of people to many different directions, being pulled in and out of the overexcited crowd, they somehow managed to get to the seats by the bar.  
They exchanged some kind of short brief conversation in this buzzing and ear-deafening room while choosing their drinks, all of which sounded so far away from his reach to actually care about. He was left at the end of the bar, definitely next to someone he did know but could not recognize, though his headache prevented him from caring to anything else but staying as far from the loudspeakers as possible. He remembered someone asking him something, but the voice couldn't even match one loudspeaker at its maximum volume, so he didn't reply. Then he remembered having a bartender in front of him, asking what he wanted to drink, and he pointed randomly at one of the bottles on the shelf. When the bartender's left to take care of the drinks, he was asked something by the person next to him again, but he shook his head, not caring what the question was, only wishing to be left alone to chew on the splitting pain in his head. Then the ones who came with him to the club left the bar and got into the crowd as a new beat started, and he was left alone at last.  
"Your drink.", he heard the bartender said, as he put on the table a glass of liquor. It was icy blue, the kind of blue that you always expect perfect ice to have, but sadly, ice was always a boring shade of white or colourless. The liquid sparkled somewhat under the disco light, turning into various other shades of blue, green and red as different colours hit the glass.  
But he couldn't even bring himself to think. His head really hurt, and he slammed his head into the counter, burying his face into the hard surface, feeling only physical pain at his forehead, which distracted the headache for about half a second.  
Just why was he at a nightclub in the first place anyway?  
"Hey, Arthur, don't tell me you're going to spend the night reading in the hotel like an oldie again! Why don't you just quit it and spend the evening with us like a young man should? Don't glare at me like that, big brother's only feeling sorry for you. Unless you really are an old man that cannot take a night at the club with all the hot chicks…"  
Oh, so that was why…  
He wanted to curse himself for being bothered by Francis's stupid challenge, when he had already got himself a terrible headache earlier in the day. And he eventually came all the way here, into this stupid crowd, drowned himself in this stupid music, watched the night passing away through this stupid glass of liquor that he didn't even know why he ordered, and the stupidest headache was on a rapid increase in damage.  
He really wanted to kill Francis now.

"Don't tell me we went all the way here so that you could sleep."  
He raised his head up for about half a centimeter to find Francis's face too close to your own, and instinctively smacked your arm into his head, with too little force, you were afraid.  
"Owww, so that's how you treat me huh? To think I even bother asking you to join us!"  
"Shut up you wit!"  
"Stop being so grumpy and really join us this time! Don't make us look bad by wasting yourself with alcohol!"  
"I haven't even touched it yet!"  
"Then why the hell are you looking like a wet rag?"  
"Just shut your mouth up and go away!"  
"Ooooohhh, what did you order Arthur? Isn't this my Blue Vodka?"  
Both of them turned to look at Alfred who was observing the blue liquid with interest.  
"And you said you would never order liquor from me again!", Alfred looked at him and sneered.  
"I didn't intend to.", he replied sloppily, just wanting everyone to vanish with the glass together, for all he cared.  
"So stubborn! But to think, you actually did order vodka…"  
"Vodka or not, whatever! Just go back to the chum where you all came from and leave me alone!"  
"Fine fine, we're going, geez! Just don't die from missing us when we're gone!"  
And he almost threw the glass at Alfred's back.

After five minutes continuously slamming his head at the counter, wishing to chase the headache away and finally realized that the headache was here to stay, he gave up and turned his hazy eyes to the dancing crowd instead.  
Closest to him, he could see Francis getting all chummy with a bunch of chicks dancing all too suggestively for his taste and he actually wondered if whatever that group was having on their bodies could actually cover anything less interesting at all. He grunted his nose. Francis's pheromone, no matter how he hated it, really worked on ecstatic inexperienced chicks.  
Then, in a corner to the left, there were the Italian brothers, who unsurprisingly had a whole corner of fans for themselves too. Somewhere there were also Antonio and the German brothers, also getting unwanted attention as they skillfully mastered whatever crazy beats were playing in the background. He could swear that Antonio would take his business somewhere else than the nightclub though, and if those stupid couples would consider where they were before starting to strip each other off. Like they were very likely to do now.  
In another part of the dance floor, he found Ivan and his gang. Ivan looked stiff, as always, since he didn't usually agree to go out (actually, how come the ex-Communists were here, no, how come anyone managed to invite them in the first place?). Natalya, or whoever his legendary little sister was, didn't look all too happy, though that girl was attracting fans of her own. The rest looked surprisingly at ease and relaxed. He could never understand those people after all.  
As the techno beat got faster, he finally saw Alfred in the middle of the dance floor, looking all too happy with, what did he know, Kiku, of all people. They looked disturbingly good together, making humanly impossible moves as they impressed the crowd. Their every movements, as if planned, coordinated so well it was as if they had been partners since forever. Or maybe they really were, he didn't know. But he did know for sure that he didn't enjoy what he saw. The more the crowd was attracted to them, the more he felt irritated.  
And he was shocked, catching himself thinking so. Why the hell was he irritated anyway?  
Maybe it was because they were all enjoying themselves while cruelly leaving him all alone with a pain in the head? Or was it because he was jealous of their really good dancing skill? Or what?  
Or, he laughed himself to this, was he jealous at any of them?  
For a moment, he really laughed out loud at the thought, but as the laughter died down, he felt strangely scared. Because it impossibly sounded like the best explanation that he could come up with. But why in the world was he jealous at any of them anyway? And which one of them, to be exact?  
While watching something irritating was disturbing, thinking about it was even more disturbing, and his brain really could use a break, so he tore his eyes of them and searched for a better subject. Which was the icy blue liquor.  
Icy blue liquor. What was its name again? Oh, Alfred said something like blue vodka… So he ordered vodka? But why the hell was it American anyway? He thought vodka originated from Russia or some Eastern Europe countries, or was he wrong? Was his head playing around and messing up knowledge in his head again, redrawing the world map while shuffling countries all up and made him confuse? Ok, forget it, let's go back to the observation of this, let's just say, vodka. It looked better than other vodka with this colour. Icy blue huh, it was nicer than the blue of Curacao, he thought. The colour looked familiar, did he see this brand somewhere before? No, he was sure that it was the first time he knew about blue vodka. But then, where did he see it? Was it déjà vu? If not, just where…

Let's see.  
Azure sky that stretched to the furthest end of the sea, mingling with the water and vague horizon.  
Prussian blue bird ruffling its plumage.  
Navy blue uniform soaked in the rain.  
Colour code for the background of the thirteen-star constellation.  
What do all of them have in common?  
Blue.  
The fucking blue colour.  
It was all because of this cursed colour.  
All of its goddamn shade, all of its forms, all of the colour blue in the world. Blue, blue, blue…  
His mind screamed at him to get rid of the icy blue liquid as fast as possible. His eyes burned at the sight of the vodka swimming in the glass. His body ached and so did his head. He immediately grabbed the glass and gulped down the content in one gulp. He was glad that it was all over when the glass was finished and he could now see the empty glass and felt safer. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling somewhat strange. The liquid poured into his stomach was somehow warming him up, releasing heat into his tissues and limps and brain, not actually easing the pain, but giving him some new feelings to think about instead of the headache. It felt actually good.  
So he ordered a new glass, and gulped it down again. And again. And again.

* * *

Something very cold touched his face, and something icy blue was staring at him. Was he trapped in an iceberg floating in the mid of the Atlantic Ocean and had just waken up to stare at his own face? Or was he locked in a mirror house with some dozen tonnes of ice?  
Either way, it felt cold.

Oh wait, maybe not. As unfamiliar warmth spread all over his skin, seeping into every inches of his body, from head to toe, and this was nothing like the warmth coming from the vodka that was burning and churning in his stomach. His skin felt feverish, as the warmth travelled on his skin in irregular patterns, burning spots on his body that made him felt really good, for some reasons. A strange aroma hit his nose and it was not the usual smell of alcohol either, but something more foul, like sweat and the likes, but wasn't unpleasant, not to mention he actually liked it. As the weird smell invading his sense, washing him with it, he realized that he was no longer listening to the techno beats, and was definitely in a much quieter environment, though he wasn't sure where. It wasn't completely silent however, as he could hear some noise, like the sound of something sliding, or small moaning, or conditioner machine running, which didn't help at all in helping him guessing where he was. And it didn't look like it mattered anyway. His headache had eased and he felt way better than when he was in the nightclub, and it was all he could ask for, so he closed his eyes.  
He vaguely remembered anything that happened afterwards, as all seemed like a blindfold that blocked every of his senses with new unknown feelings. He felt a bit lost as he floated in the mass called reality, feeling like he was guided by too many force at once until he got bored and just stayed still. He felt being washed away by something strange and powerful, gentle but harsh, and somewhere in his head was asking him to wake up. But he didn't.  
He recalled having something really warm beside him when he slept and he snuggled close to it. The feeling was very familiar, reminding him of centuries ago when he was lying under an oak tree, holding someone that was warm and precious. The feeling was almost too sacred to be true, and he humoured himself, wondering how this and that situation were the same.  
Yet somehow, he really wished that they had been. Then it would make this wound in his heart feel better. But what could he ask for?  
A villain wasn't supposed to ask for mercy.

When he woke up the next day, he was greeted with something icy blue. Like frozen blue vodka.  
"Arthur", those blue orbs said.  
He blinked.  
And he saw the face that he least wanted to see at the moment.  
"Arthur", that voice said again, with a bit more confidence and power than the first. Powerful arms were swung over his body, keeping a loose hold at his waist. He felt his legs weirdly entangled with other legs, making a bit of a matrix that he couldn't see due to the blanket covering them. And he also realized that none of them seemed to have any other form of clothing on except for the blanket on their hips and legs.  
He felt a hand touching his cheek and was startled. His face started to burn, not from embarrassment, but god knows what it was. He tried to wriggle away from the arms over his body, but to no avail, only to have another discovery. His headache was already gone during the night, in replacement was another kind of pain in another part of the body. It was worse and bizarre.  
"Arthur."  
He was starting to be sick of hearing his own name. He used the remaining strength of his leg to make a kick at the other's abdomen and made enough distraction to stand up from the bed. His lower regions twitched with pain, his legs wobbled like jelly, his head felt like being thrown into a flushing toilet, and he bumped into the drawer by the bedside. As he looked around to find his clothes, if he indeed still had any, he felt a hand grabbing his wrist.  
"Wait! Arthur, I'm…"  
Well, he was waiting…  
"Arthur, I'm…sorry."

He quickly grabbed whatever that was within his grasp and shook his arm away. He dashed towards the door in the process of putting at least his pants on and opened the door, before the other had anytime to react. He ran out of the room and slammed the door behind him, the slamming sound echoed throughout the long corridor of the hotel.  
He could hear the sound of clothes ruffling on the other side of the door. And he ran to the end of the corridor, where he found the emergency exit. He opened the door and got through, before carefully closed the door behind him. As he stood still, waiting anxiously, he heard the sound of someone running to the other end of the corridor, must be for the elevator. Then he leaned his head against the wall, tired and pained. A single tear slid down his cheek.  
Gosh, why?


	5. Interval

He never went out to clubs with everyone again. He refused their invitations, no matter who asked him, where they wanted to go, no matter if he was feeling cheerful or gloomy and upset, no matter if he was in the mood to go out or not. Although he seriously did think that he would never be in the mood to go to another nightclub again, regardless any circumstances. Thinking about everything made his head buzz and throb and made him feel nauseous.  
So, during the late afternoons and evenings home alone and not participating in any all-nighters, he was in his precious, infamous garden, plucking off every single blue-coloured flowers in the flowerbeds. Hydrangeas, bluebells, chicories, forget-me-nots, columbines,… Every single blue petal was ripped off from the dedicatedly cared garden, the small fragments of what used to be a trillion flowers and buds all scattered on the darkish soil and gray tiled pathway, blowing in the wind as a gust crossed by, flying in a whirlpool in midair. Leaving a lone man whose hands were soiled and ruined.  
Once, Kiku came over to play. His house remained the same as he remembered, the red carpet, brownish wooden floor, oil paintings, green curtains, black cupboard, earth-toned cushions, white porcelain tea set…  
In short, it was still the same as before. Neatly coloured with greens, reds, browns, blacks, yellows, grays, purples… Shorter, it was everything, but blue. There was not a single blue object in the entire house.  
"Seems like you have done some re-decorating, Arthur-san."  
"It's not much. I just had to get rid of a cursed colour."  
He had gotten rid of everything blue in his life. Blue suits and shirts and other clothing materials were burned to crisps. Blue decorations and blue-covered books were stuffed into boxes and abandoned in a second-hand shop. Blue ink was poured into lavatory and flushed. The default blue colour of his computer was changed immediately after he turned it on. His treasured blue flowers were crumbled mercilessly in his hands.  
Yes, he had gotten rid of every blue colour in his life, be it bright azure or dark midnight.  
Or so he thought.  
Because, while he could easily kill a flower or throw away the antique Chinese tea set, he could never ever shake off the everlasting blue that was glued into his mind. In his head, days and nights, was an endless canvas of blue, which trapped him inside like a door less globe, the colours changed to different shades all the time. It made him feel sick, it made him throw up, it chased him to the end of the line and drove him mad. He struggled to escape, but the globe tightened and he felt suffocated. It was not a dark nightmare, it was a blue nightmare. And he couldn't do anything about it.

"Of course he can't do anything about it, he called that name in his sleep all night."  
Once, he accidentally heard a conversation between his older brothers.  
"To think, the one whose fate he used to hold is the one who now holds his own fate."  
"Almost too ironic, I'll say."

Yes, it was truly ironic. Like another typical illogical plot of Kiku's animes, the twist of destiny and fate and something like that, the kind with big words and logic and moral that no one actually understands, only pretending that they do so that they can be proud with their fellows. The whole thing between him and Alfred also resembled one of those stories in which 'fate' was uttered shamelessly and too frequently in a twenty-six-episode series. Alfred , the one that he named, the one that he cared for, the one whose fate was already in the grasp of his hand, was now controlling his very own mere existence, driving him insane as if he was nothing. The things that man did, the words he said, the existence of his alone were enough to torture him mentally. Fate, whatever it was, sounded so real when he suffered from its will.  
Sometimes, he wondered which of them had created this blue string in the first place? Was it him, who confirmed the bond between them by those words he uttered under the light blue sky? Or was it Alfred, who buried him into the heart of that land with blue feathers and downpour? Which one of them was the first to tie the string around them, binding them together? Which one of them was holding the end of it? He didn't know.  
Kiku said something about a belief that true love was bounded with a red string tied on their pinky fingers. When he heard that, he asked, so, if two people are bounded together with a blue string that constrained their bodies, what are they then?  
"I'm not sure, Arthur-san, I do not have such belief in my country. But I think, to be bounded to another is a good thing. At least you are no longer alone."  
Good thing, huh?  
Seriously, everything Kiku said made him wanted to laugh his guts off.  
It's a good thing to be bounded that way? Gosh! What a terrible way to make up things, Kiku!  
It was even more terrifying that when he was alone in his room that night, he actually wished that his string would turn red the next time he opened his eyes.  
But he woke up next morning to find nothing but his body soaked with sweats and eyes filled with tears and vague memories of a blue dream.  
The dream in which he was tying a blue string onto their pinky fingers.


	6. Cerulean

"Hey, Matthew…"  
"Yes, Arthur-san?"  
"Tell me again, why the hell are we in New York?"  
"Arthur-san, you did agree to hang out with me on holiday…"  
"I do remember that. I asked, why the hell are we in New York?"  
"You didn't tell me that you didn't want to go here."  
"You are Canada, right?"  
"Um, yes."  
"Then why aren't we in, I don't know, Vancouver? Quebec? Or..."  
"I've never said that we were going to Canada."  
"Wha…Why you…"  
"Anyway, let's go back to the hotel first! The whole holiday awaits us!"

"What the…"  
"Is there something wrong, Arthur-san? Did they forget to clean the room? Please wait, I'll go and report it…"  
"No, it's not it…"  
"Then, what's wrong?"  
"Why in the world did you get me this room, at this hotel?"  
"Alfre…I mean, I read on a travel book that this is the best hotel in the city. And there are only two rooms left."  
"Then, trade my room with yours!"  
"No, I can't… I mean, umm, I'm afraid of height!"  
"What?"  
"You see, this room is on the eleventh floor, the other is on the sixth floor. I want to take the latter one because I'm afraid of height. I get dizzy and throbbing heart when I stare out of the windows, and I get frantic, and…"  
"Since when did you get acrophobia?"  
"Ahh, uh, that is… That-is-from-the-time-when-me-and-Francis-san-went-to-Eiffel-tower-and-he-took-me-all-to-the-top-and-it-was-so-high-it-scared-me-and-from-then-I-am-afraid-of-height. That's all, really."  
"Hmm… Oh well, if that's the case."  
"Then please get some rest. Maybe later we can go out for dinner?"  
"All right then. But Matthew…"  
"Yes?"  
"You sure there aren't any rooms left but this one?"  
"There aren't, I'm afraid."  
"Fine…"  
"Um, I'll go to my room now…"  
"Okay, see you later."

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  
"Hello?"  
"Arthur-san! Oh I'm sorry, are you still sleeping? I'm really sorry!"  
"Matthew?... Urgh, it's nine already? Time lag must have worn me out. I'm sorry, I'll get up right away."  
"No, it's okay if we set off later, it's the holiday after all…"  
"Wait for me downstairs, I'll be right down."  
Plop. Rustle.  
"What?..."

"Matthew!"  
"Good morning, Arthur-san, I'm sorry about earlier, I should have guessed about the time lag you got."  
"It's nothing, don't worry. Say, is there anything strange on your bed this morning?"  
"Something strange… Arthur-san, what are you saying, what's with something strange…"  
"It's not what you think! Geez, did Francis spread his pervertness to you or something? What I mean is, did you find something strange placed on your bed when you woke up? A flower, perhaps?"  
"Flower? No, I don't think so… But why would a flower be on my bed?"  
"I don't know, I found flowers on my bed earlier. But why… It can't be room service. But I'm sure I lock the door last night when I went to bed. And nothing's gone, so it couldn't have been a burglar. Hmm…"  
"Oh, Arthur-san, maybe it was room service, but they forgot the one in my room?"  
"You've got a point. Well, it's just flowers, it's nothing big."  
"Can I ask something Arthur-san? What kind of flower are they?"  
"It was… Nothing, it was nothing."

When Matthew was waiting for Arthur to take a shower, he found branches of blue irises in the waste basket.

"It's getting strange, Matthew…"  
"What is strange, Arthur-san?"  
"There's something very strange about the flowers on the bed this morning."  
"You received more flowers this morning?"  
"Yeah… But that's not the point. I think there's someone leaving them there on purpose."  
"What do you mean? Did they leave a note?"  
"No..but the arrangement of the flowers… when I got the ones the night before, I didn't really think about it, but this time…the flowers were arranged to make the 'A' letter. And now I think about it, the first ones were in the letter 'J'."  
"J..and A?"  
"Yeah. JA. I checked the manager and they said that there was no room service like such. And the letters..it's as if someone's trying to tell me something."  
"But that means someone got inside your room!"  
"Yes…but no damage was done, neither to my possessions nor myself, it's totally abnormal."  
"But still, isn't it dangerous? Maybe we should report it to the manager."  
"Nah. It seems like the sender of those flowers wants to challenge me on something. Hah, as if I'm afraid. Let's just see what he'll be scheming next."  
"Are you sure, Arthur-san?"  
"Of course. Don't worry Matthew, nothing's gonna happen."

"What is the letter today?"  
"It's 'M'".  
"J-A-M. Jam? This person wants to eat jam?"  
"Right, very funny."

"E, huh… Jame… This person's name is James, perhaps?"  
"I hope he's giving a more interesting message than his own name."

"So what's the one today?"  
"It's… O…"  
"J-A-M-E-S-T-O. Is there even a word spelled like that? Arthur-san, umm, Arthur-san?"

Two days afterwards, Matthew came to Arthur's room to find an empty room. His belongings were still there, but the man was nowhere to be found. A maid said that she remembered seeing a blonde man going out just after midnight in a hurry. There was no note or any suggestions on where he could have gone.  
But on the white sheet of the bed, Matthew found blue irises shaped as the word 'N'. And cerulean rose petals making the word 'JAMESTOWN.'  
He picked up an iris and spin it between his fingers.  
"Really, you are just too troublesome, Alfred."

* * *

The next time he stopped to catch a breath, he was in front of a house. A house that he had gone to for so many times he had already lost counts, a house in which he used to sleep over when he went to visit New York, a house that he had already learnt by heart every single detail, from the arrangement of furniture in the living room, the colour of the carpet, the location of each room, the scent of the house, the route to get here by various transportations and directions. He knew about this place too well.  
He thought he too knew about the owner of it too well. But as things were now, he feared that he had not understood that man at all.  
Before he could press the doorbell, the door had already wide opened. There was a person at the doorway, a tall, well-built man with blond hair and blue eyes. Instinctively, he turned away from the intense gaze Alfred gave him, trying to look at something else, anything, as long as it wasn't those eyes.  
He felt breathless. Months of not seeing Alfred again didn't help him to forget what happened that night, or any memories they shared. Worse, the details had been carved into his head and sealed inside, reminding him again and again. Therefore, standing like this, staring at Alfred's trainers like this, he was suffocated. The scent, the figure, the heavy gaze on his face, the breathing sound, the existence of Alfred, everything, everything just spinned in his head, screaming to him that he had indeed brought himself to this place, in front of the man that he had run away from for too long.  
For a minute, there was a pregnant silence between them, nothing was heard except the howl of wind and his quick breath from running all the way. They just stood at their spots, gazing at their own decided objects, not doing any unnecessary actions, waiting for the other to react first. He started to feel awkward. He knew that the flowers in his room were from Alfred, he knew the message that Alfred sent him, he knew what Alfred wanted him to do. But now, when they met, none of them could say a word.  
Suddenly, a warm hand grabbed his wrist. He found himself being pulled into Alfred's car and thrown into the front passenger seat. He saw Alfred buckled the seatbelt for him, then got into the driver's seat and started the engine. He vaguely realized that Alfred had already driven out of the garage when they were already on the highway.  
None of them said a word on the entire trip. The radio wasn't turned on and the car was soundproof, which made the whole space completely silent. Alfred kept on looking at the highway in front of him, not once bothered to spare a glance at his companion. Arthur kept still at his seat, not moving a muscle while his head trying to guess where they were going, but soon gave up as he was too unfamiliar with the scenery along the way. He hadn't been to this country for so long, he couldn't keep up with the constant changes. Just as he couldn't keep up with Alfred's train of thought. Besdies, he was tired from the sleepless night and the exhaustion of running, and his eyelids felt heavy.

As he dozed off, he remembered a warm hand touching his right cheek, a familiar hand that felt just right. He unconsciously leaned into it and snuggled towards it, enjoying the faint caress of hot fingertips on his skin.  
It was too familiar…

Light from somewhere knocked gently on his eyelids and woke him up. He blinked, first trying to get used to the direct sunlight at his eyes, then locating himself. He was lying on a soft bed of grass underneath a big oak tree, which seemed to stand alone in the middle of the meadow. There was a sweet-scented jacket covering his body, a jacket that certain wasn't his. The air was fresh and a bit damp, so he must be in the countryside somewhere. Sunlight of the afternoon danced on the leaves of bushes nearby, making them glossy and glittery. There were the chirps and clicks and sounds of farmland birds, seeming so far away among the few trees that stood on the other side of the hill. He stood upright and leaned his back against the hard trunk, hearing a gust approaching. If this was really a meadow, then he would expect the scent of crop and ploughed soil in the wind.  
Instead, he encountered a way sweeter aroma, like that of a flower. And not just any kind of flower either, it was the flower that was too familiar to him it surprised him greatly, to be bathed in such a rich scent of it.  
As he searched for the source of the wind, the blue sea reached out for him.  
It was a vast meadow of flowers, stretching as far as he could see to the end of the sky. The flowers were in full bloom, opening their thick and soft petals for all to see, their scent filled the entire land with a sweet and peaceful feeling. It was the first time that he had seen so much blue, in such a long time, his eyes hurt from the magnificent blue meadow. He bent down to pick a flower and stared at it in disbelief. In his hand was, literally, a blue rose.  
A wind blew and the blue waves rocked gently in the same direction, the heavy petals swayed in a valse, turning land into sea. Blooming sea of cerulean gems.

His body suddenly felt very warm and he felt long arms wrapped around him tightly. There was heat coming from the body behind him, the warmth seeped through the jacket and shirt into his back, making him feel feverish. The arms around him tightened as a blond hair rested on his shoulder, feeling ticklish. There was hot breath on his neck and a nose snuggled at the uncovered skin.  
"Arthur, I'm sorry.", the man said, his voice muffled as he uttered into the fabric.  
His heart suddenly felt as if being squished and his breath quickened. He felt dizzy all of the sudden, just like that time. His heart beat faster and his chest hurt, his eyes watered and he felt strained.

It all seemed as if the whole thing was played in his head again. The strange room, the strange body that laid besides him, the warmth, the hand on his arm, the apologize.  
"I'm sorry.". The words echoed in his ears.  
Why, why did you apologize?  
Are you trying to forget everything you did to me by just those words, I'm sorry? Did you regret doing it to me? Are you already tired of toying with me, and now you're throwing me away with an apology?  
Alfred, this is too cruel.  
Your apology will give you ease of soul and make you forget everything. What does it give me?  
It hurts, Alfred, it hurts.  
Because, I'd rather you didn't apologize at all. Then, maybe I can still remind myself that once we were together, that we did make love, even though there was no love between us. At least I will be able to make sure that it isn't just illusions created in my head out of desperation.  
Why, why did you apologize?

"Sorry..for what?", he managed to ask, his own voice also choked, but by a strange lump that formed in his throat.  
Alfred raised his head up and rested his chin of Arthur's shoulder. His eyes travelled far into the baby blue sky. His muttering sounded soft and quiet, totally out of character: "For hurting you that night."  
"So you are asking for my forgiveness? Then I forgive you, now please let me go.", and he wriggled from the hold, though failing and the inhuman strength of the grip. He heard a small surprised yelp in Alfred's throat.  
"Why the hell do I need your forgiveness?"  
"Then why the hell did you apologize? Don't you regret what happened?"  
"Arthur!", he heard his name called in an annoyed tone, "the only thing that I regret was the fact that I hurt you that night. I'm sorry that I went the wrong way with things, I should have just followed the plan, but as you can see, I reversed the whole thing."  
"Wait, what?"  
"It usually goes with the confession, then dating, then it will be sex, right? But you were so seductive and easy-going that night, it's not like I'm so good at holding myself back or anything, so it's partially your fault too. To think, you were happily yelling that you loved me for all the world to hear when I carried you back to the hotel…"  
"Wait, just when did I ever do that, bastard? I can't remember a thing."  
"Of course you can't, you drank every last drop of blue vodka at the club. Oh well, I didn't expect you to accept it anywhere, so I'll be the hero and do it first."  
Alfred turned his head sideways and whispered something into his ears. But before he could catch the words, wind howled into his ears, taking away the sound as it travelled pass the wide meadow.  
"Say it again, I can't hear you."  
"No way, it's embarrassing that I have to say it first you know."  
"The wind was howling in my ears, I couldn't hear you. And since when do you know how to be embarrassed?"  
"This isn't fair Arthur. Fine, I'll just put it another way…"  
There was a hand in his hair, pulling the strands softly and guiding his head forwards. When their lips sealed, his half-lidded eyes met with the most gorgeous blue colour that he had ever known.  
It had got to be the bluest colour in the world.


	7. Midnight sparkles

"You are being awfully quiet today, Arthur. What's wrong?"  
"Don't fucking 'what's wrong' me. Whose bright idea was it to have a dress-up carnival in Jamestown today anyway?"  
"We have to give people something new to enjoy the holiday you know."  
"Right, like having everyone dress up in 1776 military uniform is a great idea. Thanks a lot."  
"Oh come on Arthur, don't tell me you are still sulking on things that happened that long ago!"  
"Shut up, bastard. And to think I'm reminded every year of this goddamn event."  
"Come on now Arthur, come here with me. Don't sulk anymore. I'm all here again aren't I?"  
Arthur rolled over and put his head on Alfred's heaving chest. He smirked as he heard a yelp from the man beneath him when his body rolled over on top. But there was a hand in his hair that gently brushed over the strands and it pleased him greatly, so he stopped his mischief and just enjoyed the moment.  
"Feeling better now?"  
"Mmm."  
"You know, you could have just picked another place to stay today other than Virginia. Well, it's not like your reminiscent self wants to go anywhere else, right?"  
"I'm not the only one reminiscing. Don't tell me you just desperately reserved this place out of your own whim and personally cared for the roses and insisted on keeping the oak tree and the bluebird's nesting site all for nothing."  
"How did you know about all that stuff?"  
"Same source from the person who put flowers on my bed on my holiday back then in New York."  
"Tch, and I told Matthew not to tell anyone…"  
"He didn't, Francis just happened to catch the information from the device he installed on Kumajirou's collar."  
"Wicked, aren't you?"  
"You are not so bad yourself."

"You are not watching the fireworks."  
"Why the hell should I? It reminds me of the occasion."  
"A little celebration doesn't hurt your ego anymore than it already did. Considering this a toast for my birthday."  
"But I dislike seeing your face under fireworks."  
"What does my face have anything to do with fireworks?"  
"The fireworks change the colour of your eyes. It's strange."  
"Arthur, did you just say what I think you said? I didn't know you can be that emotionally cute. Is it because of the blue vodka you had earlier? One glass is already enough to knock your senses?"  
"Of course not!"  
"Oh well, I'll let it go this time, under a condition..."  
In a flip, he was turned onto his back, facing upwards into the hovering face of Alfred above. As Alfred dived down and pulled Arthur together into a kiss, his eyes were shadowed by the bright and colourful fireworks behind, turning his eyes midnight blue like the sky above. But it wasn't simply just blue. In the corner of those eyes were sparkles of various colours, like glimmering confetti thrown into the air, like the streaks of fireworks afar downtown.  
This tone of blue was the most beautiful of it all.


End file.
